


The Music of Freedom

by the-nug-king (eloralouistra)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4472171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eloralouistra/pseuds/the-nug-king
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day you're a mindless monster. The next, you have your mind back, and you're horrified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Music of Freedom

**Author's Note:**

> I really feel BioWare could have done more with the Mother's story, and wish Awakening had gone into her motivations and given you the option of siding with her. You seem to be supposed to hate her just for being grotesque, which seems very unfair when you look at the reasons for her being that way. So I ended up writing about her point of view.
> 
> No explicit violence so I didn't tag it, but warnings for discussion of, well, everything Broodmothers entail. It's not a light fic.

For a while, you’re any other Broodmother, unthinkingly creating new Darkspawn because this is your purpose, this is what the music of the Old Gods wants from you. It’s all you know. And then suddenly, you remember life before. You remember a family, you remember the sky, you remember your dreams. You remember being human.

You remember the Darkspawn coming, dragging you underground, fighting and screaming. You remember the way they hurt you, used you,  _fed_ you, oh Maker, you remember the taste and the vomiting and the way they shoved it down again. You remember the way your body changed, your repulsion at yourself, the horror as you realised what you were becoming. You remember hearing the music for the first time and you remember how you threw yourself into it, anything just to be unaware because it was too late for anything else.

The music’s gone now and you’re aware of  _everything_.

The blood never seems to stop and your skin hangs away from your face and it  _hurt_ s. You’re still giving birth all the time ( _he_  calls this freedom and in time you’ll laugh and laugh and laugh about that) and  _that_ hurts and it never, ever stops. You were beautiful once, you remember.

Your Hurlocks and your Children and the rest of the Darkspawn around you are without the music for the first time in their lives, they don’t have a Before to compare it to. They don’t know that this isn’t a life. The Father thinks this is freedom, but he has nothing to compare it too either. You remember Before, and you know this isn’t freedom.

You miss the music, you miss not being able to think, you miss not knowing what freedom is, you miss not knowing you can never be free again. Your heart feels as much pain as your body does, for yourself and for your people, and you’re the only one who knows what freedom is and the only one who knows how to give it to them.

The music was your freedom from the horror and the pain and the  _knowing_  once, and it has to be again. It’s all you can give to your children now. You’re not a real mother, not like the mothers in the world you knew Before, but you love your children. (The mothers from Before would feel hate and disgust for you, for your _children_ , so you hate them too.)

You hate the Father for doing this. You hate the Before you can never get back. You hate the now and the absence of the music and the _knowing_. You hate the Grey Wardens who think this is  _their_  battle, who think the world of the Before still matters.

You hate the Grey Wardens a little less as your thoughts get slower, fuzzier, even when there’s more blood than ever before, more blood than you knew was in you, and the rushing noises closing in around you are their own kind of music. And finally, _finally_ , you’re free.


End file.
